So for that reason, we decided to fly Air India Business Class from Hong Kong to New Delhi which I have mixed feelings about. Normally, I’ll only fly business class if I can do it using AsiaMiles, for whatever the duration of the flight is, it’s not worth paying triple or more to fly business. Sure it’s way better than economy but it’s at the most 10-11 hours of your life and think of what you can buy with the savings on a long haul flight.  Unless your company is paying for it, or you’re trying to get rid of miles, you’re an absolute slapper for flying business and paying for it on short haul flights.  But I digress!  This is about our Air India Business Class flight.

First up I should mention, I wasn’t expecting much, when a business class seat is basically the same price as an economy seat on another airline, you know it’s not going to be fantastic.  I guess HK-New Delhi is short haul, being about 5-6 hrs, so the first thing you should know is you don’t get flat beds.  The seats are in a 2-2-2 configuration, lots of room, but these days most airlines give you flat beds in business class unless it’s short haul.  So seats were fine on Air India Business Class, staff were fine, don’t expect an award winning smile but perfectly acceptable. By the way, Air India calls it Executive Class, not business class, if that makes a difference.

To the bad part, and that was the food.  Atrocious, absolutely bloody horrible!  I don’t even know what they called it, or what I would call it. Some kind of spaghetti with meat that if I had to describe on the menu to let people know exactly what I was getting, I’d probably have to say something like “Long Things Resembling Spaghetti in Gunky Gooey Sauce, Eat At Your Own Peril”. And that would be stating it nicely.  Basically my Dad and I could only eat a few chunks before deciding it may be better to have a sleep.

So, make sure you pig out on something before you fly, if you’re considering flying Air India Business Class from Hong Kong to New Delhi.  I think they had some bread too, that was what I would imagine they’d serve you up in prison. Otherwise everything else was fine, it’s like anything else in life, you get what you pay for.

You should also know this – we stayed at the Oberai New Delhi, excellent hotel that is now (until January 2018), closed for renovation. Not sure why, the website says they’re putting in a new air conditioning system. We didn’t notice anything wrong with that, rooms were nice and most of the reviews are glowing.  5 minutes walk to the Delhi Golf Club, not many shops or anything nearby but most of the touristy things are within 2-3 km so 5-10 minutes in a taxi.

Taxi’s and transport are dirt cheap in New Delhi, so even if you do get ripped off it’s not a big deal and not worth getting into a confrontation about. Might need to agree on prices before you get in the car though.